1643, Nov
‘There came to Aberdeen ane Doctor Pont [hus], who had some stage plays,
whilk drew the people to behold the sport; syne, upon the stage sold
certain balms, oils, and other physical ointments, whereof he made great
gain. Thereafter he went north to other burghs, and did the like.’—Spal.

If it were allowable to use the language of the day, we
might say that the devil had at this time broken out in unusual activity.
Accordingly, the public authorities had not only to prepare an army for
the aid of the parliament against the king in England, and make vigorous
crusades in Strathbogie and other over-loyal districts, but to meet the
powers of darkness with all the terrors of the criminal law. The number of
old women who suffered for offending at once against the 18th chapter of
Deuteronomy and the 73d act of the ninth parliament of Queen Mary, in Fife
alone, was thirty. One noted case was that of Agnes Finnie, a poor woman
dealing in small articles at the Potterrow Port in Edinburgh, who was
convicted and burned

in 1644. Mr Charles K. Sharpe has presented us with the
articles of her dittay, and as they afford a highly characteristic picture
of the acts then attributed to a witch, and give some curious glimpses of
the private life of the period, I make no apology for transferring them to
these pages.

‘Having

threatened Mr William Fairlie’s
son to send him halting hame, because, going by her door, he, in a
nickname, called her Annit Winnie, he within twenty-four hours
after, lost the power of his left side by her witchcraft, and languished
in so incurable a disease, that the whole physicians called it
supernatural, and the haill substance of his body ran out at his cute
[ankle]; and the boy laid the whole wyte [blame] of his death constantly
upon the panel.

‘She laid upon Beatrix Nisbet a
fearful disease, so that she lost the power of her tongue! because
she paying the said Agnes two dollars owing her by her father, would not
give her annual rent [interest] therefor. She laid a grievous sickness
upon Jonet Grinton, whom ye threatened that she should never eat more in
this world, because she had brought again two herring she had bought from
you, they not being caller [fresh], and sought back her eight pennies.
[two-thirds of a penny sterling], and of which she died, without eating or
drinking conform to your threatening.

‘Ye came in to visit John Buchanan’s
bairn, being sick of a palsy, and bade the, father and mother go ben the
house [remove to the inner apartment] a while and pray to God for him; and
in the meanwhile ye stayed with him, and when they returned, they fand him
violently sick that he could neither stir hand nor foot, and that by your
devilry; and fand on his right buttock about the breadth of one’s loof,
the same so sore as if a collop had been ta’en out of it; and he died in
eight days in great dolour.

‘Falling a scolding with Betty
Currie, the said bairn’s mother, about the changing of a sixpence which ye
alleged to be ill, ye, in great rage, threatened that ye should gar
[cause] the devil tak a bite of her. Ye laid a grievous sickness on her
husband, John Buchanan, that he burned a whole night as if he had been in
a fire, for taking his wife Betty Currie’s part against you, and boasting
[threatening] to cast you over the stair, and calling you a witch; whereon
ye threatened to make him repent his speeches; and for taking the same off
him, he coming the next day and drinking a pint of ale with you, and
telling you that if you tormented him so another night, he should make all
the townhear tell of it; whereon he was
weel. The said John being offended at you because ye would not trust his
wife a twelvepenny cake [penny roll], ye bade him go his way, and as he
had begun with witches, so he should end; after which threatening, he
straight contracted a long and grievous sickness, whereof he was like to
melt away in sweating.

‘In your scolding with Euphame
Kincaid, ye calling her a drunkard, and she calling you a witch, ye
replied: "That if ye was a witch, she and hers should have better cause to
call ye so;" accordingly, a great joist fell on the said Euphame’s
daughter’s leg, being playing near your house, and crushed the same, and
that by your sorcery.

‘Ye, ending an account with Isobel
Acheson, and because ye could not get all your unreasonable demands, bade
the devil ride about the town with her and hers; whereupon, the next day,
she brake her leg by a fall from a horse, and ye came and saw her, and
said: "See that ye say not that I have bewitched you, as other neighbours
say."

‘Robert Watt, deacon of the
cordwainers, having fined Robert Pursell, your son-in-law, for a riot, ye
came where he and the rest of the craft were convened, and cursed them
most outrageously, whereon Robert Watt broke the cap upon your head; since
which time he fell away in his worldly means, till long after, he being in
your good-son’s house, where ye likewise was, ye asked "if he remembered
since he broke the cap on your head? and that he had never thriven since,
nor should, till you had amends of him;" whereon, he being reconciled with
you, he prospered in his worldly state as before.

‘The laying on of a grievous
sickness on Christian Harlaw, for sending back a plack’s worth of salt
which ye had sent her, it being too little; ye having threatened her that
it should be the dearest salt that ever she saw with her eyes, and then,
at her entreaty, ye came to her house, and she became presently weel;
whereon Christian said, that "if ought ailed her thereafter, she should
wyte [blame] you." Christian Simpson being owing you some money, and
because she craved only eight days’ delay to pay it, ye threatened in
great rage, that "she should have a sore heart ere that day eight days;"
according whereto, the said Christian’s husband broke his leg within the
said eight days.

‘John Robison, having called you a
witch, you, in malice, laid a flux on him by your sorcery. Appearing to
John Cockburn in the night, when both doors and windows were fast closed,
and terrifying him in his sleep, because he had discorded with your
daughter the day before. Causing all William Smith’s means to evanish, to
the intent he might never be able to relieve some clothes he had pawned
beside you, worth an 100 lb., for 14 merks Scots only. Onlaying a grievous
sickness on Janet Walker lying in childbed.; and then ye being sent for,
and the said Janet’s sister begging her health at you for God’s sake, ye
assented, and she recovered of her sickness presently by your sorcery.

‘Being disappointed of having
Alexander Johnston’s bairn’s flame, ye, in a great rage and anger, told
him, that "it should be telling him 40 lb. betwixt and that time
twelvemonth, that he had given you his bairn’s name;" whereon he took a
strange sickness, and languished long; and at length, by persuasive of
neighbours, he came to your house, and after he had eaten and drunken with
you, ye with your sorcery made him whole. Item, the child whose
name ye got not was past eleven years ere he could go.

‘Having fallen in a controversy with
Margaret Williamson, ye most outrageously wished the devil to blow her
blind; after which she by your sorcery took a grievous sickness, whereof
she went blind. Laying a madness on Andrew Wilson, conform to your
threatening, wishing the devil to rive the soul out of him (which words,
the time of his frenzy, were never out of his mouth), and that because he
had fallen in a brawling with your daughter. Item, for taking off
it.

‘Bearing company with the devil
these twenty-eight years by-past; for consulting with him for laying on
and taking off diseases, as weel on men as women and bestial; which is
notourly known.’

It clearly appears that this woman
had, at the utmost, been guilty of bad wishes towards her neighbours, and
that if these had any effect, it was only through their superstitious
apprehensions. We may suppose such to be the type of a class of cases—the
simply maledictory. It is fairly presumable, however, that, while
the community was so ignorant as to believe that malediction could have
positively injurious effects, it would occasionally have these effects
by its influence on the imagination, and consequently become an active
evil. In this we can see a possible cause of the long persistence of the
belief in witches. The ignorant, seeing an effect, and not observing the
influence of the imagination in the case, would of course find no
objection to laying it all to the account of witchcraft. The enlightened,
again, disbelieving witchcraft, but at the same time ignorant of the
influence of imagination, would have no alternative but to deny the
facts; and this unreasoning and unsound scepticism, being contrary to the
experience of the ignorant, would fall to disabuse them of their
superstitions.

In this year (December 31, 1643) is
an entry in the parish register of Markinch, Fifeshire—’ Compeared Janet
Brown, and being posed if she used charms, she confessed that she did
charm two several persons—Viz., James Hullock and Janet Scott, but no moe.
The words of the charm are these:

Being posed who learned her the
foresaid charm, answered, ane man in the parish of Strathmiglo.’

There is reason to believe that this
is a charm of great antiquity for the healing of bruises and sprains.

The faith in necromantic power being
wholly a part of the religious earnestness of the time, it is only to be
expected that the clergy should appear deeply interested in prosecutions
of this class, and sedulous that suspected persons should be duly tried
and the guilty brought to punishment. In October 1644, Margaret Young,
spouse of William Morison, merchant in Dysart, described herself, in a
petition to the Privy Council, as having lain miserably in prison for ten
weeks, in consequence of a false accusation got up against her as ‘a
consulter of spirits,’ by a few neighbours acting under a feeling of
‘spleen and envy,’ ‘albeit she is ane honest young woman, of good
reputation, without any scandal or blot, and never knew nothing of that is
put to her charge.’ She had petitioned the Privy Council to have the
bailies and ministers of Dysart summoned before them, and ordained to set
her at liberty; and on an appointed day, one of the ministers came
forward, and craved to have a longer time ‘to see if any dittay sould be
given in against her? Even that time was now expired, and yet, with no
charge against her, she continued to languish in her wretched
imprisonment. The lords agreed to liberate Margaret, on her husband giving
security to the extent of five hundred merks, that she would compear if
afterwards called upon.— P. C. R.

In the ensuing mouth—so frequent
were accusations of witchcraft at this time—one Margaret Thomson, wife of
Alexander Gray in Calder, complained before the same tribunal, against the
Tutor of Calder and the minister of that parish, for ‘waking her the space
of twenty days naked, and having nothing on her but a sackcloth,’ under a
charge of witchcraft. She had been ‘laid in the stocks, and kept separate
from all company and worldly comfort;’ nor could she ‘see any end of her
misery by lawful trial.’ The lords, having the woman’s husband before
them, and also the tutor and minister, and no regular charge being
forthcoming, ordained her to be liberated upon security.

1644, July 7
(Sunday) A solemn fast and humiliation was kept throughout Scotland, on
account of backsliding from the Covenant, and the prevalence of vice and
godlessness; as also to entreat the favour of Heaven for the parliamentary
arms, and to pray for the filling of the king’s heart with the love of
reformation. A fast in those days was a reality. In Old Aberdeen, the
people entered the church at nine o’clock, and continued hearing prayers
and sermons till two. They might have then dismissed for a space, but they
sat still hearing ‘reading’ till the commencement of afternoon service,
which ended at six. Then the bell rang for evening-prayers, which
continued till seven. ‘Thus was the people wearied with fasting and
praying, under colour of zeal, whilk rather appeared a plain mockery of
God.’ On the ensuing Thursday, a similar fast was kept, when the king and
queen were prayed for, in a manner, it may be suspected, for which their
majesties would not be duly thankful. ‘No prayer to confound the armies
raised against him, but rather prayer for their good success.’— Spal.

Sep
Immediately after Montrose had gained his first victory at Tippermuir, and
while his army lay at Collace, in Perthshire, his adherent, Lord Kilpont,
eldest son of the Earl of Airth, lost his life in a lamentable manner. His
friend and associate in arms, James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, had been
incensed at some outrages committed on his lands by the Irish auxiliaries
under Alaster Macdonald or MaeCol-keitoch, while they were advancing to
join Montrose. He had complained to Montrose, had had a violent
altercation with Alaster MacCol, and it had been found necessary to place
both him and MacCol under arrest. This step was taken at the
recommendation of Lord Kilpont. To pursue the narrative of a descendant of
Stewart: ‘Montrose, seeing the evil of such a feud at such a critical
time, effected a sort of reconciliation between them, and forced them to
shake hands in his presence; when it was said that Ardvoirlich, who was a
very powerful man, took such a hold of Macdonald’s hand as to make the
blood start from his fingers. Still, it would appear, Ardvoirlich was by
no means reconciled.

‘A few days after the battle of
Tippermuir, when Montrose with his army encamped at Collace, an
entertainment was given by him to his officers, in honour of the victory
he had obtained, and Kilpont and his comrade Ardvoirlich were of the
party. After returning to their quarters, Ardvoirlich, who seemed still to
brood over his quarrel with Macdonald, and being heated with drink, began
to blame Lord Kilpont for the part he had taken in preventing his
obtaining redress, and reflecting against Montrose for not allowing him
what he considered proper reparation. Kilpont of course defended the
conduct of himself and his relative Montrose, till their arguments came to
high words; and, finally, from the state they were both in, by an easy
transition to blows, when Ardvoirlich with his dirk struck Kilpont dead on
the spot. He immediately fled, and under cover of a thick mist escaped
pursuit, leaving his eldest son, Henry, who had been mortally wounded at
Tippermuir, on his death-bed." [On the 8th of June 1643, a case came
before the Privy counciI, at the instance of Lawrence Mercer and others,
students at St Andrews, who complained of a scandalous charge got up
against them by James Stewart of Ardvoirlich and his two sons, Robert and
Harry, to the effect that umwhile Alexander Stewart, son of the first
party, and brother of the two others, had received deadly injuries from
them in a college tumult, and died in consequence. It was shewn that
Alexander had provoked a tumult by his insolent speeches, and afterwards
lay for a day or two in bed, but was found on inspection to be quite well,
and he had lived in good health for nine months after. The lords
accordingly declared the complainers to be innocent of what was laid to
their charge.]

This story will be generally
recognised as one which has supplied some leading incidents in the
Legend of Montrose. The present version of it, more favourable in some
features to Ardvoirlich than that which occurs in Wishart’s Life of
Montrose, was communicated to Sir Walter Scott in 1830 by Robert
Stewart of Ardvoirlich, who stated that it had come to his father from a
man who lived to a hundred years of age, the great-grandson of the
homicide laird by a natural son, who was present with him at the time of
the deplorable incident.

Oct
After the taking of Newcastle in this month by the Scottish Covenanting
army, ‘the pest’ came from that place [In a curious and rare pamphlet, by
William Lithgow, descriptive of the siege of Newcastle (Edinburgh,
printed by Robert Bryson, 1645), we get some idea of the wretched
state to which the place was reduced in consequence of its investiture of
several months. ‘We found great penury and scarcity of victuals,
ammunition, and other necessaries within that dejected town; so that they
could not have held out ten days longer, unless the one half had devoured
the other. The plague was raging in Gateside, Sandside, Sunderland, and
many country villages about.’ For this reason, Tynemonth was obliged to
surrender also; ‘the pestilence having been five weeks there with a great
mortality, they were glad to yield and to scatter themselves abroad, bnt
to the great undoing and infecting of the country about.’ Lithgow, by the
way, was dissatisfied with the treatment of Newcastle by his countrymen.
‘As they abused their victory,’ says he, ‘in storming the town, with too
much undeserved mercy, so they as unwisely and imprudently overreached
themselves, in plundering the town with an
ignorant negligence and careless omission. .
.. And as they thus defrauded themselves with a whistle in their mouths,
so they pitifully prejudged, bythis their inveigled course, the
common soldiers of their just due and dear-bought advantages.’] into
Scotland, where it met a field highly calculated for its diffusion. There
had been dearth the preceding year from deficient harvest, and since then,
what with the drawing away of men for the army, the grievance of a heavy
excise to support it, the incessant harassment of many districts by
hostile and plundering armies, and the extreme anxiety and distress of
mind occasioned by the civil war, assisted, doubtless, by the generally
depressing effect of incessant preachings, prayings, fastings, and
thanksgivings,by which the whole sunshine of life was, as it were,
squeezed out of the community—those vital powers which resist and beat off
disease must have been reduced to a point much below average. It is not
surprising, therefore, that the plague took deadly hold of the country,
and rapidly spread from Edinburgh to Borrowstounness, Kelso, Perth, and
other towns, all of which were grievously afflicted by it during the next
year.

1645
Of the ecclesiastical discipline of this period, and its bearing upon the
habits of the people, we get a good idea from the Presbytery Record of
Strathbogie, which has been published by the Spalding Club. The whole
moral energy of the country appears as concentrated in an effort to fix a
certain code of theological views, including a rigid observance of the
Sabbath, the suppression of witchcraft, the maintenance of a serious style
of manners, and the extirpation of popery.

A committee of the presbytery made
periodical visits to the several parishes, called the minister and chief
parishioners before them, and examined the parties separately as to each
other’s spiritual condition and religious practice. For example, at Rhynie,
the minister, Henry Ross, being removed, the elders were sworn and
interrogated as to his efficiency. They ‘all in ane voice deponed that
concerning his literature he was very weak, and gave them little or no
comfort in his ministry; but, as concerning his life, he was mended, and
was blameless now in his conversation.’ The elders being in their turn
removed, the minister was called in and examined regarding them. He
‘regretted that the parishioners frequented not the church, nor assisted
him in his discipline, but despised him.'

To be absent any considerable number
of times from church was punishable; and if the parishioner proved
contumacious, he was liable to be excommunicated—a doom inferring a loss
of all civil rights, and a complete separation from human converse. To
refuse to take the Covenant, or to have any dealings with the loyalist
Huntly, brought men into similar troubles. Old women using charms for
healing, persons ‘kindling needfire’ for the cure of cattle, or reserving
a field for the devil (the Guidman’s Croft), and females
pilgrimising to holy wells, according to old custom, were all vigorously
proceeded against, in obedience to refrated acts of the General Assembly
for uprooting of all superstition. Irregularities between the
sexes, and even quarrelling and scolding, had to be expiated in sackcloth
before the congregation. Drunkenness and swearing were also censured. In
dealing with these offences, an unsparing inquisition into domestic and
family matters was used, and no rank, age, or sex seems to have afforded
the subject any protection.

As specimens of religious offences—a
gentleman was prosecuted for bringing home a millstone on a Sunday;
another, for gathering gooseberries in time of sermon. It was found
regarding Patrick Wilson, that he had sat up with a company drinking till
after cockcrow, consuming in all eleven pints—that is, about two dozen
quart bottles—of ale; he had struck a man, and railed in his drink at
several gentlemen of the parish. ‘The brethren ordained Patrick to stand
in sackcloth two Sabbaths, and pay four merks penalty.’

The Lady Frendraught,’ who now lived
at Kinnairdie, in the parish of Aberchirder, is a conspicuous subject of
the discipline of the Strathbogie presbytery, on account of her being a
papist. To leave this inoffensive lady in the quiet exercise of her own
religious forms was not within the capabilities of the Christian charity
of that day. It is no over-statement of the case that this ecclesiastical
body set themselves to simply harass her out of her peculiar convictions -
or rather professions; for they seem to have been content when they could
effect an external conformity, and the horrible guilt of forcing a
fellow-creature into a mere hypocrisy, seems never to have been present to
their minds.

So early as 1636, the synod had sent
one of their number to deal with her, and induce her to go to church; for
a time she conformed. Two years after, a similar visitation of the lady
had become necessary; so she and her daughter Elizabeth were summoned for
‘not hearing of the word, and not communicating.’ What came of this does
not appear; but in 1643, a deputation of ministers was sent to deal with
her according to the ordinance of the General Assembly, and to report her
answer. It was soon after reported that ‘she promised to hear the word,
and desired a time for further resolution.’ It was then agreed to give her
some short space to decide on becoming ‘a daily hearer,’ but ‘if she
refused, the process to go on against her.’ The poor lady once more
promised ‘to hear the word, as she had done before,’ and it was resolved
to ask the advice of the General Assembly on the point. Years passed on,
without bringing her further than to agree to go to the church which her
husband frequented—which was out of the bounds of this presbytery. What
immediately happened after this does not appear; but, on the presbytery
resolving (January 1647) again to proceed against her ladyship, it was
reported that she was out of the country. A few months later, the
commissioners of the General Assembly ‘granted her liberty to be ane
ordinar hearer of the word at Forgue for a time.’ This, however, did not
stop the process. The lady was hunted into another presbytery, where she
seems to have kept them at bay for a little while. In June 1648, Mr John
Reidford reported that he had spoken her, but ‘found no effect of his
travels;’ he required further time.
Soon after, the same minister reported that on a
second interview, she expressed herself as ‘willing to bear the word in
any kirk save Aberchirder and such as are within the presbytery of
Stratbbogie.’ This was not to be endured. She was immediately summoned as
a contumacious person. On the day of call, she ‘compeared not;’ and Mr
John Reidford, her parish minister, proceeded to give from his pulpit, on
successive Sundays, a series of three admonitions addressed to her; then,
in like manner, a series of three prayers. As her ladyship continued to
disregard all proceedings in her case, the presbytery prepared itself to
pass the awful doom of excommunication, when, behold! another act of
concession on her part stays all: she agrees to be present at family
worship in her own house—her husband was all this time a leading
Covenanter and promised also to hear sermon; whereupon the sentence was
suspended for a time. In August 1649, the minister Reidford reported that
she had ‘keepit sermon at Innerkeithing the last Lord’s day, and daily
keepit family worship.’ This was not enough. They instruct Reidford ‘to
shew her that, if she did not conform in all points, the sentence of
excommunication would be pronounced before the next assembly.’ Reidford
soon after pleaded for her, that she had heard three sermons; but the
brethren ‘thought not that kind of bearing satisfactory.’ They ordained
him to put her to a decided test at once, by offering her the Covenant:
failing her subscribing that, Reidford was to pronounce sentence.

The lady, with the ingenuity of her
sex, contrived once more to put them off—she told Reidford she would take
a thought about it. Meanwhile, she amused them with hopes by continuing to
attend church; telling them ‘she was
not fully satisfied for subscribing the Covenant.’ But even female wit
could not bold out for ever against such a siege. In June 1650, after an
incessant harassment of fourteen years, she gave them ‘satisfaction’ by
subscribing the Covenant, and thus abjuring in words the faith she still
held in her heart. Little more than two years had elapsed, when the
presbytery learned that she had ‘relapsed to popery,’ and appointed
commissioners to confer with her on the subject. It was found she was now
obstinate in her original belief ‘professing, moreover, that she repented
of her former repentance more than of any sin that ever she committed, and
thought that she had reason to repent all her lifetime for subscribing the
National Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant.’ Then took place a
renewal of the same tedious dealings with the lady, ending
at last in 1654, in a peremptory order for her excommunication. By that
time, however, excommunication had lost much of its terrors, as Cromwell,
then master of Scotland, would not allow the sentence to have any
consequences in respect of civil rights.

Many traits of barbarous manners occur in the record,
shewing that the clergy had somewhat rough materials to deal with, in
their efforts to build up a perfect system. Many offences of a violent,
and even sanguinary character, are noticed. There were also several
persons so far left to a wicked nature as to hold the dicta of the
reverend presbytery itself in contempt. For instance, John Tulloch, on
being summoned regarding an irregularity with Elspeth Gordon, answered,
‘the devil a care cared he for their excommunication; excommunicate him
the morn [to-morrow] if they pleased.’ Three witnesses attested regarding
James Middleton, that, on his being rebuked by the minister, they heard
him say that ‘he cared not for him, nor any minister in Scotland;’ and
when the minister threatened to put him in the
jougs, they heard
him say that ‘neither he nor the best minister within seven miles durst do
so much.’ One William Gordon, in Dumbennan parish,
declined (June 1652) the authority of the presbytery, in consideration of
the many sad experiences he had had of the usurpation of civil power by
the Presbyterian government, and its ‘tyrannous persecuting of men’s
consciences who, out of tender scruples, did differ from their opinions in
matters indifferent and circumstantial; as also, finding that the greatest
part of their prayer and preaching doth more tender the advancement of
their private interest and faction than the propagation of the gospel; and
seeing their frequent railing against the authority and civil power which
God hath set over us, whereby the people’s minds are kept unsettled and
averse from the cordial union of both nations, which, by God’s great
mercy, we are now like to enjoy.’ He declared himself separate from them,
and that he would ‘no more esteem of their excommunication than they did
formerly of the pope.’ On sentence of excommunication being passed on this
recusant, ‘he lookit very frowardly, and uttered himself most proudly and
maliciously.’

The opinion of the royalist party regarding the
general condition of the nation at the time when the
Covenanting spirit was at its height is sketched by one of their number.
‘Seven years,’ says he, ‘had this terrible distemper of the unparalleled
Covenant ruled, or rather overruled this kingdom. It was now grown to ane
height, and had cast this nation in a new mould, for the laws were rolled
up in oblivion, the College of Justice was discharged from sitting,
and over all the land the ordinary seats of justice were no
more frequented, only the private committees in every shire and county
ordained what they list, and must not be controlled, under pain of a
fearful plunder. Nor was it right or wrong that must be decided by these
committees, but grievous exactions and heavy subsidies, with new stents,
almost every quarter, of horse and foot levies.... The poor was not pitied
nor the rich respected; the good man was not remembered nor the virtuous
man rewarded: only the soldier was in esteem and enriched, who could
murder, kill, and oppress.’—Pa.Gordon.

At the same time, the general expressions of the church
of the day involve heavy charges against the clergy themselves, partly
founded perhaps on actual offences in their case, and partly the result
merely of the disposition to think every grace of poor human nature
insufficient, in comparison with the ideal religious standard set up. Thus
we find the Commissioners of the General Assembly denouncing ‘the
enormities and corruptions observed to be in the ministry,’ and making out
a list which is difficult to reconcile with our ideas of the boasted
golden age of the Scottish Presbyterian polity. There is ‘much fruitless
conversing in company,’ ‘great worldliness,’ ‘slighting of God’s worship
in families,’ ‘want of gravity in carriage and apparel,’ ‘tippling and
bearing company in untirneous drinking in taverns,’ ‘discountenancing of
the godly,’ even a want of decent observance of the Sabbath. ‘There are
also to he found amongst us [some] who use small and minced oathes.’

Feb 13
Notwithstanding the high pressure exercised by the kirk at this time in
matters of discipline, we have ample evidence that there were many sad and
pestilent escapes of human nature, occasioning infinite distress to
sessions, presbyteries, and assemblies. There was one old popular
institution, called the Penny Bridal, which has been under notice before,
as producing a suspicious amount of happiness among the commonalty. The
General Assembly now saw proper to launch a solemn act against these merry
assemblies, ordaining the presbyteries to put them under the severest
restrictions.

Two years after, February 7, 1647, the presbyteries of
Haddington and Dunbar are found taking measures for putting this act in
force; and from their proceedings, we incidentally learn how far the late
religious fervours were from decidedly reforming or purifying manners.
Multitudes exceeding twenty assembled on these occasions. The paying of
extravagant sums—sums exceeding 12s. for a man and 8s. for a woman (that
is, one shilling and eightpence respectively)—caused great
immoralities—’ piping and dancing before and after dinner or supper,’
drinking after dinner, and so forth. ‘Moreover, loose speeches, singing of
licentious songs, and profane minstrelling, in time of dinner or supper,
tends to great deboshry.’ ‘Through all which causes, penny bridals, in our
judgment, become seminaries of all profanation.’ They therefore ordained
that not above twenty persons should ever gather on such occasions; that
the men should never give above a shilling, and the women eightpence; and
that all piping, dancing, singing, and loose speeches, should cease. To
make sure that these rules should be observed, it was further ordained
that a pair about to marry and to hold a penny bridal, should not have the
ceremony performed till they had lodged twenty pounds or other guarantee,
to be forfeited in the event of disobedience.’

Feb 27
The arrangements for the maintenance of a militia in Scotland were fixed
by the Estates. Each county and burgh was ordered to raise and maintain a
certain number of foot-soldiers (exclusive of horse), according to their
respective amounts of population, at £9 Scots per month for each man. The
lists are curious, as informing us of the assumed comparative population
of the several counties and burghs in that age.

The total number is, for counties, 9873; for burghs,
1879— total, 11,772. If we assume that the aim was to call out one soldier
for every sixty souls, the. entire population would be 706,320. Edinburgh
would have 34,440 inhabitants; Glasgow and Perth, each 6600; Stirling and
Haddington, each 2160; Ayr, 2460; Dundee, 11,160: Inverness, 2400; St
Andrews, 3600; Dumfries, 2640; Montrose, 3180; &c.

Apr 1
‘This day, Kelso, with the haill houses, corns, barns, barn-yards, burnt
by fire, caused by a clenging of ane of the houses thereof whilk was
infected with the plague.’—Hope’s Diary.

The pest appears by this time to have reached
Edinburgh. The Town Council agreed (April 10) with Joannes Paulitius, M.D.,
that he should visit the infected at a salary of eighty pounds Scots per
month. A great number of people affected by the malady were quartered in
huts in the King’s Park; others were kept at home; and for the relief of
these, the aid of the charitable was invoked from the pulpits. The session
of the Holyroodhouse or Canongate parish ordained (June 27) that ‘to avoid
contention in this fearful time,’ those who should die in the Park ‘shall
be buried therein, and not within the church-yard, except they mortified
(being able to do so) somewhat ad pios usus, for the relief of the
other poor, being in extreme indigence.’

The Estates, then sitting in Edinburgh, were pleased
(August 2) to order five hundred bolls of meal to be given from the public
magazine ‘for relief of the poor of Leith, which are sorely visited with
the pestilence.’—Bal.

Under the pressing exigencies caused by the epidemic,
the Town Council of Edinburgh came to the resolution (August 13) of
liberating those confined for debt in the Tolbooth, obtaining first the
consent of creditors. They retained, however, several political prisoners,
particularly the Earl of Crawford and Lord Ogilvie, who had signalised
themselves by their fidelity to the king. A few weeks after, Montrose
having at Kilsyth overthrown the last militia army that had been mustered
against him, came to Bothwell, and thence despatched a letter to the
Edinburgh magistrates, demanding the liberation of these captives, under
threats of fire and sword; and they then completed their jail delivery.
The marquis was solely prevented by the plague from advancing and taking
possession of the city.

Among the regulations established during the time of
this pestilence was one for preventing people from travelling into any
district suspected of being under the influence of the disease. We find it
proclaimed, for example, in the parish kirk of Humbie, August 10, ‘that
none presume, either masters or servants, men or women, to go out of the
bounds that they dwell, upon whatsomever errand or business, to any
suspected place, without special leave of the masters of the ground.’ If
any transgressed this order, ‘they saIl not be received back to their own
houses or dwellings, but their houses sall be locked and closed up.’ No
stranger could be received into a house without ‘liberty from the masters
of the ground and the kirk-session conjointly."

On this occurrence of the plague, a Scotch gentleman is
found copying and sending to a friend the following specific for the
disease, an invention of Dr Burgess:

‘Tak three mutchkins of Malvoysie, and ane handfull of
red sage, and a handfull of rue, and boil them till a mutchkin be wasted.
Then strain it, and set it over the fire again; then put thereinto ane
pennyworth of long pepper, half ane of ginger, and ane quarter of ane unce
of nutmegs, all beaten together; then let it boil a little, and put
thereto five pennyworth of Mithridate and two of treacle, and a quarter of
a mutchkin of the best Angelic water.

‘Keep this all your ljfe, above all bodily treasures.
Tak it always warm, both morning and evening, ane half spoonfull if ye
be in health, and one or two if ye be infected; and sweat thereupon.

‘In all your plague-time, under God, trust to this; for
there was never man, woman, nor child, that this deceived.

‘This is not only for the common plague which is called
the Sickness, but also for the small-pox, missles, surfeat, apd divers
other diseases.’

It is understood that those who died by the plague were
usually buried in places apart from churchyards, from an apprehension that
the infection might burst out and spread, if the graves should be
reopened. We find that the Estates ordained (August 4), ‘since that it
pleased God to call the Laird of Craigies of the pest, who was lodged in
the sheriff-clerk’s house, that these that are within the house shall
inter him in a remote place of the ordinary burial-place of the town.’—Bal.
In the parish of Cramond, there are four graves of victims of the
plague, in solitary situations; two of them at a place called the Whinny
Haugh, in King’s Cramond Park, marked with small head-stones, on which are
these inscriptions: ‘Here lies Janet Dalmahoy, who deceased the 20th of
October 1647,’ and ‘Here lies John D—, who died the 20th of November
1647."

On this occasion, the pest lingered in the country for
a considerable time. It was in full force in Glasgow towards the close of
1646. The infected were either shut up in their houses or sent out to a
muir at some distance from the town. ‘December 12, compeared the haill
tacksmen of the mill, ladles, tron, and brig,’ complaining to the Council
that, ‘in respect of the sickness and visitation, they could get naething
of their duties.’ Graves of persons who were suspected of having died of
pest were ordered to be marked. The disease does not appear to have
entirely ceased in Glasgow till October 1647.—M. of G.

An anecdote illustrating the terrors inspired in
private circles by the plague, is related with regard to this occurrence
of the disease, in the memoir of the Stewarts of Coltness by Sir Archibald
Stewart Denham of Westshield, a gentleman born in 1683. Speaking of Sir
Thomas Stewart, he says: ‘A remarkable incident happened him in his youth,
when the pestilence broke out in Edinburgh in 1645. He with a son of
Westshield, a merchant apprentice, had gone to a public-house, and
received change of some money, and next day that house was shut up, as
infected with the plague. This gave a strong alarm at home. James Denham
was sent for, and both were strictly examined as to every circumstance.
Thomas had received the money in change, and so frightened were all, that
none would touch the pocket in which the money was, but at a distance; and
after the pocket was cut out, it was with tongs cast in a fire, and both
lads were shut up in a bed-chamber, sequestrate from all company, and had
victuals at proper times handed into them. While they thus stood their
quarantine, by strength of imagination or power of fancy, some fiery spots
broke out on their arms and thighs, and they imagined no less than
unavoidable death. They mutually lamented; Thomas had more courage and
Christian resignation than his companion. "James," said he, "let us trust
in God and in the family prayers, for Jesus’ sake, who, as he cures the
plague of the heart, can, if we are infected, cure the most noisome
disease of the body." They both went to their knees, and joined in most
solemn prayer, had much spiritual comfort, and in a fortnight were set at
liberty, and the family retired to the country."

As far as appears, the plague did not visit Scotland
after this time—a circumstance the more remarkable, as it was so deadly in
London in 1665, and even reappeared there in the ensuing year. In
connection with the plague, the tale of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray has
obtained a large currency in Scotland. According to a report on the
subject, communicated to the Antiquarian Society in 1781 by Major Barry of
Lednoch, the incident took place in the year 1666; but this is probably a
mistake, arising from an assumption that the last great pestilence of
London was general over the country (1665 being further mistaken for
1666). Major Barry says:

‘When I first came to Lednoch, I was shewn (in a part
of my ground called the Dronoch Haugh) a heap of stones almost covered
with briers, thorns, and fern, which they assured me was the burial-place
of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray.

‘The tradition of the country relating to these ladies
is, that Mary’s father was Laird of Lednoch, and Bessie Bell’s of Kinvaid,
a place in this neighbourhood, and an intimate friendship subsisted
between them: that, while Miss Bell was on a visit to Miss Gray, the
plague broke out in the year 1666; in order to avoid which, they built
themselves a bower about three-quarters of a mile west from Lednoch House,
in a very retired and romantic place called Burn Braes, on the side of the
Beanchie Burn. Here they lived for some time; but the plague raging with
great fury, they caught the infection (it is said) from a young gentleman
who was in love with them both. He used to bring them their provision.
They died in this bower, and were buried in the Dronoch Haugh, at the foot
of a bite of the same name, and near to the bank of the river Almond. The
burial-place lies about half a mile west from the present house of Lednoch
[now called Lyndoch].

The major adds: ‘I have removed
all the rubbish from this little spot of classic ground, enclosed
it with a wall, planted it round with flowering shrubs, made up the grave
double, and fixed a stone in the wall, on which are engraved the names of
Bessie Bell and Mary Gray.’

It will be found that while the plague raged in London
in 1665, Scotland was free of it; neither is there any notice of the
malady occurring in 1666, either in Lamont’s or Nicol’s Diary, where it
could not have failed to be mentioned if it had occurred. It therefore
seems necessary to place the story of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray under
1645.

The sad fate of the two girls became the subject of a
ballad, which commenced thus:

‘Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,
They were twa bonnie lasses,
They biggit a bower on yon burn brae,
And theekit it ower wi’ rashes.’

[* In a popular publication quoted below occurs
the following notice of a well-known land
mollusk, in connection with a traditionary story of the plague, which has
long had general currency in Scotland: ‘In the woodlands, the more
formidable black nude slug, the Anon or
Limax den, will also be often encountered. It is a huge voracious
creature, herbivorous, feeding, to Barbara’s astonishment, on tender
plants; fruits, as strawberries, apples; and even turnips and mushrooms;
appearing morning and evening, or after rain; suffering severely in its
concealment in long droughts, and remaining torpid in winter. The gray
field slug (Limax agrestis) is actually recommended to be swallowed
by consumptive patients! In the town of Dundee there exists a strange
traditionary story of the plague, connected with the conversion, from dire
necessity of the Arionaten, or black slug, to a use similar to that which
the luxurious Romans are said to have made of the great apple-snail. Two
young and blooming maidens lived together at that dread time, like Bessie
Bell and Mary Gray, in a remote cottage on the steep (indeed almost
perpendicular) ascent of the Bonnetmaker’s Hill. Deprived of friends or
support by the pestilence that walked at noonday, they still retained
their good looks and healthful aspect, even when the
famine had succeeded to the plague. The jaundiced eyes of the
famine-wasted wretches around them were instantly turned towards the poor
girls, who appeared to thrive so well whilst others were famishing. They
were unhesitatingly accused of witchcraft, and had nearly fallen a prey to
that terrible charge; for betwixt themselves they had sworn never to tell
in words by what means they were supported, ashamed as they felt of the
resource to which they had been driven; and resolved, if possible, to
escape the anticipated derision of their neighbours on its disclosure. It
was only when about to be dragged before their stern inquisitors, that one
of the girls, drawing aside the covering of a great barrel which stood in
a corner of their domicile, discovered, without violating her oath, that
the youthful pair had been driven to the desperate necessity of collecting
and preserving for food large quantities of these Limacinoe, which
they ultimately acknowledged to have proved to them generous and even
agreeable sustenance. To the credit of the times of George Wishart—a
glimpse of pre-reforming enlightenment—the explanation sufficed; the young
women escaped with their lives, and were even applauded for their
prudence.’]

1646, Oct
A set of ‘malignants’ intruded themselves into the magistracy of Glasgow,
‘and at the very same time did the pestilence arrive in the town.’ Spreull,
the town-clerk, with Mr George Porterfield and Mr John Graham, had to go
to Edinburgh to complain of this intrusion before the Estates. During the
winter, while they were absent, the plague was so severe, that the
malignants would fain have been quit of the magistracy. ‘In February
1648,’ says Spreull, ‘having carried the point at the parliament, we came
home and were reponed; whereupon, though there were several hundreds of
families shut up for the sickness, yet for twenty days after, there died
not so much as one person thereof, and frae thenceforth it did abate till
it evanished.’

1647, Sep 17
A letter of this date, from James Morphie, tailor in Edinburgh, to the
Earl of Airly, has been preserved, and is in its way a curious memorial of
the past. When found a few years ago in Cortachie Castle, it contained
five pieces of cloth, being, we may presume, those alluded to by the
writer, and all as fresh as on the day they were cut.

‘RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD—I received your lordship’s
letter, and have tried for the nearest swatches of cloths I could find,
conform to the orders received, and has enclosed them in this letter, with
the prices written by them. As for the Kentish cloths your lordship
desired, there is few or none to be found; but we expect some to be home
shortly. There is only ane swatch of Kentish cloth here, with the price
thereof. Likewise receive the piece that was taken out of the tail of your
lordship’s doublet. Any of thir clothes your lordship pleases, send for
them by the first occasion, or [ere] they be gone. Not troubling your
lordship ony forder, but rests your lordship’s humble and obedient
servant, JAMES MORPHIE. From Edinburgh, the 17 day of September 1647.
[Addressed] For the Right Honourable the Earl of Airly.’

The letter and pieces of cloth were placed in the
Arbroath Museum.

‘Two years before this, one Captain George Scott came
to Inverness, and built a ship of a prodigious bigness for bulk and
burden—never such a one seen in our north seas. The carpenters he brought
with him to the north, and my Lord Lovat gave him wood—fir and oak—in
Dalcattack Woods. I myself was aboard of her in the Road of Kessock, April
1645, and many more, to whom it was a wonder. She set sail the day before
the battle of Auldearn; and among other passengers that went in her south
were—Colonel Fraser, and his lady, Christina Baillie; Hugh Fraser, younger
of Clanvacky, and Andrew Fraser in Leys; also John and William Fraser in
Leys. This ship rode at anchor in the river month of Nairn, when the
battle of Auldearn was fought in view. Captain Scott enlarged the ship
afterwards, as a frigate, for war, and sailed with her to the Straits, his
brother William with him. William was made a colonel, at Venice, and his
martial achievements in defence of that state against the Turks may very
well admit him to be ranked amongst our worthies. He became vice-admiral
to the Venetian fleet, and the bane and terror of Mussulman navigators.
Whether they had gallies, galloons, or galliasses, or great war-ships, it
was all one to him. He set upon all alike, saying, the more they were the
more he would kill, and the stronger the rencounter should be, the greater
should be his honour, and the richer his prize. He oftentimes so scourged
the Archipelago of the Mussulmans, that the Ottoman power, and the very
gates of Constantinople, would quake at the report of his victories; and
he did so ferret them out of all the creeks of the Adriatic Gulf, and so
sharply put them to it, that they hardly knew in what part of the
Mediterranean they should best shelter themselves from the fury of his
blows. He died in his bed of a fever, in the Isle of Candy, in 1652. He
was truly the glory of his nation and country, and was honoured, after his
death, with a statue of marble, which I saw, near the Rialto of Venice,
April 1659.'—Fraser of Wardlaw’s MS., 1666.

1648, June
Amongst those who looked ill upon the expedition which the Duke of
Hamilton was preparing for the relief of the king in England, was his
Grace’s own parish minister at Hamilton, Mr James Naismith. Wodrow
records, as a traditionary story, that, on the Sunday before the Duke went
to England, Mr Naismith preached before his Grace on the text: ‘Weep ye
not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep sore for him that goeth
away: for he shall return no more, nor see his native country,’ Jer.
xxii. 10. The preacher said that God would
regard neither dukes nor generals, and as sure as the Bible was the word
of God, any who went on in a course of opposition to him, should not
return in peace. ‘On the Monday after, when the duke was leaving Hamilton,
there was a crowd of women looking on. Mr Naismith said: "Hold him! hold
him! for you will never see his face any more." The Duke at his death in
England, said he would give never so much to see his own faithful
minister, Mr Naismith.’—Wod.An.

July 28
The Shorter Catechism recently framed by the Westminster Assembly of
Divines, for the instruction ‘of such as are of weaker capacity,’ and
which has since been in constant and universal use in Scotland, was this
day sanctioned by the General Assembly, sitting in Edinburgh.

Oct 4
Oliver Cromwell paid his first visit to Edinburgh. He came hot from the
destruction of the Duke of Hamilton’s semi-royalist Scotch army at
Preston, designing to confer with the heads of the ultra-presbyterian
party for the extinction of that kind of opposition in the northern part
of the island. The Earl of Kirkcudbright and Major-general Holburn
conducted him into the city, where he was lodged very handsomely in the
Earl of Moray’s house in the Canongate; a strong guard of his own
troops was mounted at the gate. ‘The Earl of Moray’s house,’ says
Thomas Carlyle, ‘still stands in the Canongate, well known to the
inhabitants there—a solid spacious mansion, which, when all bright and new
two hundred years ago, must have been a very adequate lodging.’ ‘As soon
as he came there, the Chancellor [London], the Marquis of Argyle, the Earl
of Cassius, the Lord Burleigh, the Provost of Edinburgh, with many other
lords and gentlemen, went to pay their respects to him; and the next day,
the Earl of Cassius and Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston went to visit
him on the part of the Committee of Estates, to know what he had to
communicate to them. Cromwell presented them a writing, whereby he
demanded that, in order to keep Hamilton’s party from being able to rise
up again in Scotland, where they might embroil the two kingdoms, they
would be pleased to order that none of those who had carried arms under
his command, or who had consented to the invasion of England, should have
any public employment in Scotland. The committee granted him that
article.’ Such was the ostensible, and, as far as appears on any good
evidence, the real business between Cromwell and the committee men. Bishop
Guthry adds the vulgar royalist rumour: ‘While Cromwell remained in the
Canongate, those that haunted him most were, besides the Marquis of
Argyle, London the chancellor, the Earl of Lothian, the Lords Arbuthnot,
Elcho, and Burleigh; and of ministers, Mr Band Dickson, Mr Robert Blair,
and Mr James Guthrie. What passed among them came not to be known
infallibly; but it was talked very loud, that he did communicate to them
his design in reference to the king, and had their assent thereto.’

Cromwell was only three days in Edinburgh on this
occasion. On Saturday, all business being adjusted, "when we were about to
come away, several coaches were sent to bring up the lieutenant-general,
the Earl of Leven [governor of the Castle and Scotch commander-in-chief],
with Sir Arthur Haselrig, and the rest of the officers, to Edinburgh
Castle; where was provided a very sumptuous banquet [old Leven doing the
honours], my Lord Marquis of Argyle and divers other lords being present
to grace the entertainment. At our departure, many pieces of ordnance and
a volley of small shot was given us from the Castle; and some lords
convoying us out of the city, we were parted." The lord provost had
defrayed us all the while in the handsomest manner.’ —
Carlyle.

To the fall of this year is to be traced the origin of
the term Whig, as applicable to a well-known party
in the state. Burnet, who was likely to know the facts well, makes the
following statement: ‘The south-west counties of Scotland have seldom corn
enough to serve them round the year; and the northern parts producing more
than they need, those in the west come in the summer to buy at Leith the
stores that come from the north. From a word Whiggan, used in driving
their horses, all that drove were called the Whiggamores, and,
shorter, the Whigs.... After the news came down of Duke Hamilton’s
defeat, the ministers animated their people to rise and march to
Edinburgh; and they came up marching on the head of their parishes, with
an unheard-of fury, praying and preaching all the way as they came. The
Marquis of Argyle and his party came and headed them, they being about
6000. This was called the Whiggamores’ Inroad [strictly the
Whigs’ Raid]; and ever after
that, all that opposed, the court came in contempt to be called Whigs.’

We find John Nicoll, the diarist, in 1666, speaking of
the west-country Presbyterians as ‘commonly called the Whigs,’ implying
that the term was new. The sliding of the appellation from these obscure
people to the party of the opposition in London a few years later, is
indicated by Daniel Defoe as occurring immediately after the affair of
Bothwell Bridge in 1679. The Duke of Monmouth then returning from his
command in Scotland, instead of thanks for his good service, found himself
under blame for using the insurgents too mercifully. ‘And Lauderdale told
Charles, with an oath, that the Duke had been so civil to the Whigs,
because he was himself a Whig in his heart. This made it a court-word; and
in a little while, all the friends and followers of the Duke began to be
called Whigs."

The time of the Whigs’ Raid, and from that to
the execution of Montrose (May 1650), may be considered as that of an
entire supremacy of the religious or rather ecclesiastical system for
which the majority of the nation had been struggling for several years.
The view of it taken by the royalists is sketched in strong terms by the
writers on their side. ‘The kingdom groaned under the most cruel tyranny
that ever scourged and afflicted the sons of men. The jails were crammed
full of innocent people; the scaffolds daily smoked with the blood of our
best patriots. The bones of the dead were dug out of their graves, and
their living friends were compelled to ransom them at exorbitant sums.
Such as they were pleased to call Malignants were taxed and pillaged at
discretion. The Committee of the Kirk sat at the helm, and they were
supported by a small number of fanatical persons and others who called
themselves the Committee of Estates, but were truly nothing else but the
barbarous executioners of their wrath and vengeance. Nor were they ill
satisfied with their office, on account of the profits it brought them by
fines, sequestrations, and forfeitures, besides the other opportunities it
gave them of amassing riches. Every parish had a tyrant, who made the
greatest lord in his district stoop to his authority. The kirk was the
place where he kept his court; the pulpit, his throne, or tribunal, from
whence he issued his terrible decrees; and twelve or fourteen sour
enthusiasts, under the title of elders, composed his council. If any, of
what quality soever, had the assurance to disobey his edicts, the dreadful
sentence of excommunication was immediately thundered out against him, his
goods and chattels confiscated and seized, and he himself being looked
upon as actually in the possession of the devil, and irretrievably doomed
to eternal perdition, all that conversed with him were in no better
esteem.’

The moderates involved in the late expedition of Duke
Hamilton for the king, were now brought to punishment. ‘They compelled
every one that escaped to sit several Sundays in sackcloth before them,
mounted, as a spectacle of reproach and infamy, upon the stool of
repentance in view of "the elect," and to undergo such other penance as
they were pleased to impose.’

Amongst the penitents was the Chancellor Earl of
Loudon, of whom it was scarcely to have been expected that he should join
in the Engagement. His submission is alleged by Burnet to have been
enforced by his wife, a high Covenanter and an heiress, who threatened him
with a process for conjugal unfaithfulness, ‘in which she could have had
very copious proofs.’ So he made a public repentance in the church of
Edinburgh, ‘with many tears confessing his weakness in yielding to the
temptation of what had a show of honour and loyalty.’

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